hotel and motel bedside bibles

Up and down the coast from BC to California I have left post-its directing the next reader to the bible's contradictions and atrocities.

I will also be writing to the owners/managers of these establishments, complaining that I do not appreciate x-rated, racist, misogynistic, genocidal, child abusing hate literature being impressed upon me.

Replies to This Discussion

As I understand it, the idea behind the bedside bible is that it is a free service provided by Gideon's International for the benefit of Christians so that even when traveling anybody can access a copy. Either the bible in question is yours to keep, or they are so plentiful that no one cares if you walk off with one or write in it. There is nothing to stop traveling atheist from collecting Gideon's Bibles and burning them.

Gideon's Bibles trouble many atheists, although it is hard to build a case against them. The legal trouble is that this practice is non-obtrusive, does not violate separation of church and state (as many practices of Gideon's International used to).

When traveling in hotels in Africa, there is always a table somewhere with a glass surface that has a slip of paper pointing to Mecca for Muslims concerned as to which direction to pray in. This seems to me to be a perfectly logical practice, and it doesn't bother me at all. The case for the Gideon's Bible is similar, and yet something about it still bothers me. I very much like the idea of religion free rooms, but I don't think we can put up much of a legal effort. I know someone knowledgable about the ACLU who would know how much of a chance a case like this has, I'll check it out.

Although I can agree with C's estimation of the Bible, it seems like taking this sort of direct action against the hotel room Bibles is something like trying to throw the sand off the beach one grain at a time (though maybe more immediately gratifying).
We would be much better off banking on a cultural change from educating the future generations. We're not in a great place in that regard at the moment but we seem to be generally headed in that direction. That and I don't have a better idea. ;)

Has anyone else ever heard that Woody Allen spiel evolving bible and bullets? I forget most of the details, but the punch line is how this guy's life is saved by this bullet in his pocket shielding him from a crazed theist, who has thrown a bible at his heart.

Why is it you can always find a Bible in a hotel room and the cable channel guide is almost always wrong? I hadn't stayed in a hotel for quite awhile and in the intervening years, hotels got a lot more chintzy on the toilet paper and kleenex. My suggestion is the next time you go to a hotel, put the bible in the bathroom where it can be really useful when your 2 tissues and three sheets of tp run out.

I think it's only fair that they also provide the Satanic Bible alongside those Gideon thingies in hotel rooms. Just to be on the fair side. Or throw in one of Adolf's Mein Kampf there while we're on the subject. Some porn wouldn't hurt, too.

I am new to Nexus and I was delighted for purely selfish reasons reading your post.

I have started a 'take the bible challenge' with my own web blog, forgive me now for seeming to promote it, but I would like you and others to honestly let me know what you think. I have basically being either asking motels/hotels and other organisations in the public arena to either remove the bible or place another book of science etc next to it.

This blatant promoting of one faith is just simply wrong. For years it has annoyed me that organisations such as hotels presume I would wish to gain comfort from reading the bible and that they think it is still an acceptable practice to promote the bible in such a singular manner.